Discovering Emotional Labour Essay

Emotional work is the control of a persons feeling in order to parade the appropriate emotions to others in contrary situations (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 7). In other words, a person has to put a military position his or her stimulate feelings and shows the right emotions in the right place at the right time. This impression can be applied to many aspects of our daily life and when used in terms of it being sold for a wage, Hochschild (1983) define it as steamy jade. By focusing on the renovation industries, this essay will discuss Hochschilds account of emotional labour and look into certain argonas of headache caused by it.Although the practice of emotional work can be link all the way back to the ancient time, the term emotional labour is considered to be relatively new and is first discussed in Arlie Hochschilds (1983) book, The Managed Heart. With the rise of the post-industrial work, there had been a significant increase of the service sector during the late 1900s (Hochsch ild, 1983 Pg. 9). In fact, 1 now interacts with other individuals rather than work with a machine (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 9). Thus, this gives rise to the importance of interpersonal skills and the use of emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. ).Whenever a person changes his or her emotions, tone, body language, etc. to conform to an ideal, it is considered as emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 7). It is practiced widely in many forms of modern work. A flight attendance rejoiced warmly while serving each and every passengers, a cafe barista showing enthusiasm when making coffee, and a nurse showing care and concern when helping a patient. All of the above are examples of emotional labour. With it being a major part of our behavior today, it is vital that we look more deeply to understand how emotional labour works.Hochschild discussed two types of emotional acting surface acting and deep acting. Surface acting is the act of putting on or showing an emotion without truly feeling that emotion inside oneself (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 35). This means that one has to suppress his or her negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, boredom, etc. , and disp secular positive emotions, such as happiness, care, excitement, etc. There have been concerns being brought up regarding the use of surface acting, as it can lead to serious side effects such as depression.On the other hand, deep acting is the act of putting on an emotion that one truly feels inside (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 35). This is through either by showing the emotion that we really feel or by true method acting. True method acting works by thinking of our past experiences we try to encourage the real emotion that we may not have felt otherwise (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 38). In terms of emotional labour, we are often referring to true method acting which is very much similar to surface acting, one lacks the freedom to genuinely display his or herself during work. Now girls, I require you to go out there and really grinning. Your grimace is your biggest asset. I want you to go out there and use it. Smile. Really smile. Really lay it on (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 4). A pilot tells the above to the trainees of Delta Airline Stewardess Training Center. This clearly shows how much the airline focuses on the value of a personal smile to reflect it companys identity rather than its flight safety or the punctuality of its flight departures and arrivals (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 4).Another good example would be the baristas working in the world largest cafe chains, Starbucks Coffee being remained consistently by their managers to provide customers with the Starbucks finger. Baristas are told to put up a cheerful and warm front, connect with the customers and to develop the say yes attitude. In fact, beside Starbucks, many other food and beverage businesses today have already move on to focus on their customer service rather than focusing solely on the quality and taste of their products.There has been muc h discussion of emotional labour being Taylorized. Hochschild (1983) compared the labour of a factory worker and a flight colleague. She mentioned that a factory worker is simply doing physical work while a flight attendant has to do physical and mental labour, as well as also emotional work (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 6). Quite similar to Frederick Taylors calibration of the physical movements of industrial workers in the early 1900s, scientific management is now used to the mass production of emotional movements (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33).For example, Disney provides prescriptions to their trainees to always reach out eye contact and smile, greet and pleasant each and every guest, say thank you to each and every guest, etc. (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 32). The Disney look also extends to body appearances, such as hair length and style, make up, body fragrance, nails length and colour (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 32). Besides Disney, a huge number of companies are also transforming emotional labour on a gr and scurf (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33). This is because of the economical benefit of doing so (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33).If employees are able to give the customers a good experience, make them feel welcome and special, then the customers may repeat their bawl out and purchase (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33). This greatly concept greatly encourages firms to exploit the use of emotional labour (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33). The smile of a salesman is seen as a key feature of a good employee attitude and customer satisfaction (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33). The infectious smile is regarded as sources of competitive advantage. (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 33). As time goes by and till today, we all expect service to be smiling (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 3). Many see emotional labour as a potentially good as no customer will want his or her mood to be spoiled by a surly waitress or a crabby banker (Hochschild, 1983 Pg. 9). Today, it is common to have the thinking that we concede for good service and expect it to be provided (Hochschi ld, 1983 Pg. 9). However, there are several areas of concern caused by emotional labour. Disney or Macdonald in the process of creating standards of their Dreamland Experience or the Big Mac, at the same time also produce emotion in their employees (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 34).The employees have to perform interpersonal work within them to grow the ever-present smile, politeness when under pressure and suppression of annoyances and fatigue (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 35). For those that uses deep acting to perform their work started to feel that they are beginning to lose their own identity (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 35). Fineman (2003) mentions that the flight attendances were so into their work role that they began confuse of their identity, especially their sexuality. Others prefer to take on the job by surface acting, putting up the show, looking right and no more (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 5). Using surface acting can still cause one to breakdown under pressure, when their anger, irritation or rebellion bre akthrough (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 35). Beside psychological issue, there are also cultural issues of concern over emotional labour. Many fast-food workers are immigrants who have little to smile about when they arrive at work (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 36). A majority of them have many problems and faces much worry inside them but they are still judge to put up the smile (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 36).Another cultural issue is that not all social-cultural background support smiling in commercial exchange. However, by standardizing even up the emotional aspect, MacDonald except all their staff in all countries and cultural background to smile at their customers (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 36). For example, in Japan native Japanese business community were taught to smile to help them with international deals (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 42). However, this is a huge conflict with the traditional Japanese way, where instant smile is considered as a cultural insult (Fineman, 2003 Pg. 42).In conclusion, due to the emerging s ervice sector work in the late 1900s and the transformation of emotional labour on grand scale through standardization and training, we all expect service to be smiling today. No doubt, it is consider as potentially good, no one will like their mood to be affect by the others. However, there are also areas of concern over the psychological and cultural issues that arise from the use of emotional labour. Therefore, it is important for us to consider and perhaps not overly exploit the use of emotional labour for own good.